The invention relates to an electrical appliance, especially a household appliance, comprising an activation unit and at least one power supply which is linked up to a power supply network for the secondary-side supply of controlled functional units of the electrical appliance and the activation unit, and with a switch which separates the power supply unit of the electrical appliance, in an idle state, from the power supply network on the primary side and can be switched on by the activation unit.
DE 101 48 644 A1 discloses an electrical circuit for dimming the two half waves of an alternating current with a rectifier full bridge which is connected with its alternating-current inputs via an inductive load lying in series to an alternating-current source and into the diagonals of the direct current outputs of which a field effect transistor is connected, whereby the control voltage applied between gate and source is formed by an optocoupler driven synchronously with the alternating current.
DE 195 376 00 A1 and DE 196 52 472 A1 disclose an electronic circuit for energy saving in alternating current transformers, in which a primary-side electronic switch e.g. a diac, interrupts a primary side circuit of the transformer and then closes it again (known as a Horstmann circuit).
DE 19932 453 A1 and WO 01/05132 A1 disclose an electric appliance comprising a power supply unit, a transformer power supply unit and a control card for an electric appliance. Disclosed therein is an electrical appliance with a control unit and at least one power supply unit which is linked up to a power supply network and used for the supply of controlled functional units and the control unit which is able to be connected via lines to a data network outside the device via which control signals, especially a call signal, can be sent to the control unit in order to start a data transmission from or to the electrical appliance. In order to implement an energy consumption of 0 in standby mode of the electrical appliance, the switch separates the power supply of the electrical appliance in the idle state from the power supply network and the polling signal with its energy closes the electrical switch. These documents thus show a Horstmann circuit switched by an external data line.